News:

DesignCAD 2016 and DesignCAD 3D Max 2016 now available for sale. New features include an insert manager for managing a drawing's symbols, block, and images; and the ability to add custom properties to any entity or drawing.https://www.turbocad.com/designcad/

Any bets whether DesignCAD can work with numbers that large? The largest file I have worked with was about 725 megabytes. When I tried to add more by copying from smaller files and pasting into the new file some parts were lost. All it takes is a variable left over from 32 bit days that can't store numbers this large and it fails.

On the subject of layers, DCad now has 2000 to choose from, I'd be very interested to know how many layers you will have needed to create your combined 969Mb file - officially be the largest DCad file in the world.

I have used different layer schemes in each of the four files. The one I am working on now with the upper hull and main deck is 50 layers.

Actually, there are dozens of individual files, one for each of the many complex components, and each file can contain many layers. For some larger components, like the hull, I have created several different drawings using the same layer structure to allow me to work on parts of the whole in smaller files. For example, I have a lower hull drawing (below the waterline), upper hull (hull sides above the waterline, and main deck. When all are finished they are combined into a single hull drawing.

When I paste each component into a larger file I put it all on one layer. In effect, each layer is a "component." Likewise, when I build the composite file for the whole ship there will be only five layers - reference, hull, forward superstructure, midships superstructure and aft superstructure.

The reference layer has a drawing base line and frame scale for the ship. It is in every major drawing and everything is created relative to this base line. To combine different drawings I copy and paste relative to a point on this base line.

If I have to make changes to any part I start at the original file, then copy the changed part to the next higher file, etc. I do this because it is very difficult and slow to work in a file larger than a hundred megabytes. The first render (OpenGL Gouraud) of a 200 megabyte file takes 20-30 minutes. View rotations are very slow - several seconds per frame if all layers are enabled (I normally disable almost everything to make a view rotation and then enable the layers I want to see).

I am using 26.2x64.

When will we see a rendering? IF I can combine everything into one file I expect it to take several hours for the first simple Gouraud rendering. Then a Phong with shadows should take maybe 10 minutes for each view. Image file saves will also take about 10-15 minutes each.

Copying and pasting several 200-300 Mbyte files is an all day process, and can be very frustrating. I probably won't try to make a composite file of the entire ship for several weeks.

This is exciting. Looking forward to the outcome of this activity. After you're done, will you please share the final drawing with us?. We would love to play with it considering it as a benchmark for Equivalence partitioning for DesignCAD .

Actually, I am not optimistic about ever having a single 960 Mbyte composite drawing of the whole ship. In the past I have never been able to create a drawing greater than about 725 Mbytes. Beyond that when I paste new material into the drawing some parts are lost.

I will try again and report the outcome. If I succeed I can send the file on a DVD.

You don't need my ship file to create extremely large drawings for testing. I have create some pretty large test files using the Array function. I created an object with lines,planes, solids, etc., and then made the largest possible 3D array. Then I Duplicated (N) the array over and over until I had the file size I wanted. I think the largest file I created this way was about 100 Mbytes. I used it to test redraw times with different versions of DesignCAD and on different machines. But it wouldn't be hard to continue Duplicating until you had a gigabyte files - assuming DesignCAD will actually work with a file that large.

Warning: When you go over 100 Mbytes be prepared to spend a lot of time waiting for the program to finish each operation. I am working on a 250 Mbyte file right now and the first OpenGL Gouraud shading takes about 35 minutes on a 3.2 GHz six core i7 with 32 Gbytes of the fastest memory I could buy (1.6 GHz memory bus) and a Quatro 2000 video card.

However, I use OpenGL Gouraud frequently to verify that things are drawn correctly and until recently RedSDK did not have a shaded mode. In large drawings I can't tell front from back in Wireframe so I need a shaded mode.

It has been too much bother to switch between RedSDK for fast Wireframe views and OpenGL for Gouraud shading - you had to restart the program. When it takes 30 minutes after restarting the program to generate the first shaded view - well, you get the idea.

I should have said smooth shading in RedSDK. I have never used quick shading, even before RedSDK, because you can't see what things actually look like.

I think the latest version has the ability to do OpenGL or GDI Gouraud shading when RedSDK is enabled, but I haven't had time to play with it yet. It really isn't useful to me if the smooth shaded view cannot be rotated.

For Wireframe views RedSDK is MUCH faster than GDI mode. Let's hope we get some kind of RedSDK smooth shading soon. Then I can start working with RedSDK enabled and see what bugs I can flush out!

For me this latest red is useless, like swimming in dried concrete. I can't do anything, much less orbit in wireframe mode. It takes like 15 seconds between me initiating a command and it showing up on the screen. Previously I could at least work for an hour or two before red up and croaked.

Good thing is I can actually get work done in regular openGL shaded modes. And with mixed mode shading I don't have to export to cinema 4d as much. I can do colored prints and easy presentations straight from dcad.